The Last of Us Season 2 | Final Trailer | Max

The most heartbreaking moments in The Last of Us season 2 will be in safe hands thanks to a brilliant director joining the show from a different Emmy-winning HBO drama series. The Last of Us season 1 was the brainchild of Neil Druckmann, the creator of the video game franchise, and Craig Mazin, the mastermind behind Chernobyl (the miniseries, not the disaster). Druckmann and Mazin co-wrote the entire season without the assistance of a writers’ room as a more or less straightforward adaptation of the first game, with a few minor tweaks along the way.

But as they begin to tackle the gargantuan nonlinear narrative of The Last of Us Part II in season 2 and beyond, they’ve brought in some additional help. They’ve opened a writers’ room with Halley Gross, the co-writer and narrative lead of Part II (who understands these characters better than anyone besides Druckmann), and Bo Shim. They’ve also brought in some exciting new directors for The Last of Us season 2, like Loki’s Kate Herron and Watchmen’s Stephen Williams. There’s one new director in particular whose involvement means the season’s most hard-hitting scenes are in good hands.